When the Dust Settles
by FreshInk
Summary: Even though the dust settles, it doesn't mean that the battle's over. Set slightly after Hiltz and Prozen are FINALLY defeated. An intimate look into the lives of characters we never really noticed...


**A bit of my musing on the personal lives of the cast of Zoids: Guardian Force. Was originally written as a one-shot, but will likely end up as a several chapter short story.**

**Enjoy!**

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She looked fondly at the picture, her eyes softening behind her glasses. He'd always been such a lively boy, so playful, happy-go-lucky… When his father had been alive, there seemed to be no end to her son's energy—it was always "Dad this," and "Dad that." She could not recall days when she had been happier than when she was with her son and her husband in the warm sun of the Republic, the boy listening in rapture about warfare strategy from his father.

The door opened with a metallic click and she looked up hurriedly, brushing away the few stray tears that had gathered in the corner of her eyes. It wouldn't look proper to have the President of the Republic crying over a few memories and a picture!

"President Camford, ma'am, I was reporting to—" The soldier giving his statement stopped shortly. He took another step in and the door closed behind him. "Aw, _Mom_…"

She stopped brushing the tears away and smiled weepily, her aging face damp. "Hi baby."

He was hardly a baby—twenty-seven-years-old! God, she shook her head a little, her baby was a grown man! A man who had lead armies even!

He sighed a little and came to sit beside her on the sleek couch, carefully taking the picture from her hands. "Come on Mom, we've been through this. No crying during office hours, remember? Remember, you promised me the last time?"

She gave a sniffling laugh as she rested her head against his broad shoulders. "I was just thinking, Robert. Remembering your father, remembering when you were little… They were such good times. We were all so happy…"

He sighed again. They went through this every time: she would cry, he would console, she would reminisce, he would console…and then she would start nagging him about settling down and giving her "grandbabies."

"We're happy now though too, aren't we?" He gave her a hopeful smile. "I'm happy; you're happy. The war's over, we've begun writing up a peace treaty—I think we're all sufficiently happy, right?"

"He was so thrilled when we found out I was pregnant with you. It didn't matter that he was leading a country, didn't matter that everyone looked to him for guidance—he didn't care about any of that…" She gave him another watery smile. "He always said his favorite job—"

"Was just being a father." He finished for her, sighing a little at the end, resting his head atop her graying one, leaning into her. "I know, Mom. I know."

"Oh don't _'I know'_ me," she chided him gently, as she often had when he was a child. "Let an old woman enjoy her memories! Gods know I don't have anything else to really enjoy nowadays."

"You don't consider _national _peace to be enjoyable?" The left corner of his mouth quirked. "Maybe you're just being too demanding here Mom—old woman indeed! Guess you're getting crotchety in your old age."

He had expected her to laugh, not to burst into tears again.

"Oh, Mom, don't cry…I didn't _mean it! _Don't cry Mom…" He pleaded, clutching one of her hands in both of his larger ones. "Come on, you know I don't know what to do when you cry and that it makes me nervous… Don't cry Mom, I'm here, I'm here. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—!"

"You didn't do anything," she waved him off with her free hand, still sniffling profusely. "Just one of those days…oh, I miss your father so much…!" She burst into sniveling anew when she looked at her son, at this young man beside her, again. "I wish he could be here, see how you've grown into a man!"

His normally close-cropped blonde hair was meticulously slicked back from his face, revealing more of his tanned skin and rough yet handsome features. That nose, those lips, that chin!... He was his father's son, through and through. On this particular night he even looked more like the mirror image of his late father, she realized, taking in his full military dress with badges and medals clinking with every breath he took. She had nearly forgotten, in her reminiscing, that the First Annual Peace Ball was held that night, a collaborative, formal affair between the Republic and the Empire now that Hiltz and Prozen and nearly every other evildoer in the world was dead.

Her eyes wandered back to his worried, slate blue ones. He may have been capable of leading men into battle, capable of fighting wars, but when it came to teary-eyed women he was hopeless. Still, against the odds, he tried his damnedest to get her to stop the waterworks with every strategic tactic he knew.

Her lips curved upwards just a little.

She was proud of the man her little boy had become.

She wiped away all the signs of her tears and took care not to smudge her makeup, smiling again, patting him on the cheek while he still worriedly studied her face for more signs of emotional distress. "I'm okay, baby, really I am… I, I just wish your father was here. Here to help me out with all this work, all these delegations…just so stressful…"

The worried look was replaced by a look of quiet calm, thoughtfulness. After a moment, he spoke. "I wish he could be here too. I could use his help… Dad was always so good at leading, knowing what to do. People keep asking _me _what we should do, where we should go, what's the next step and I…I don't know."

She smiled at her only child fondly. "You _do_ know, you know it inside." Louise Camford held the side of his face with her aged hand and looked him hard in those dark navy eyes. "You can lead. I've seen you lead. People ask you what to do, because you're a leader—you know what to do. They trust you to take care of them, to do what's best for them. You know what you should and shouldn't do."

His eyes crinkled in a wavering smile. "You really think so?"

"I _know_ so," she gave him a peck on his sharp cheekbone, leaving behind a peach toned lipstick mark. "I even think you'll be elected President some day—but, first of all," she began to compose herself, straightening her dress and standing upright elegantly, leaving her son to collapse into the spot where she had been sitting. "I believe that you should find yourself a pretty, smart Republican girl—"

"Not again…" He moaned into the cushions. "Not the _talk_…!"

"—and then I think you should by a nice little home, maybe by the seaside? No, somewhere over the border? No…perhaps you should just stay in the Capital, that would make work easier now wouldn't it? Anyways—"

"Come on, Mom." He heaved himself upright and tried to scrub the lipstick off his face—recalling not so fondly the last time that mark had been there and he'd not scrubbed it away. Gods, between O'Connell and the Shubaltz brothers, he'd been heckled for weeks!—glaring at her with a dark look as she calmly moved towards her desk, still chattering away.

"—and then, the grandbabies!" She sighed girlishly. "Lots and lots of _grandbabies…_"

He rolled his eyes in a mixture of annoyance and amusement. At least she wasn't crying anymore.

"We're going to be late you know," he stood and brushed off the front of his grey uniform, the tassels swinging lightly as he did so, the medals on his broad chest clinking softly. **"**Emperor Rudolph won't be pleased…"

"Of course, of course." She seemed startled from her daydreaming and peered at her son for a moment before collecting her handbag, quickly going through it to make sure she had everything. "Wouldn't want to keep such a lovely gentleman waiting, right Col. Hermann?"

"_Of course _not, Madam President," he replied with more than a faint trace of sarcasm. "Now, am I going to escort you or are you going to walk in there all by your old lonesome self?"

"Col. Hermann!" She took the arm he offered and gave him a disapproving look over her glasses. "That isn't any way to talk to the President of the Republic! Honestly…"

And, as if on cue, the two of them burst out laughing, sharing the same, identical smile. While they may have been commander and soldier, they would always be mother and son first.

"_What_?"

"I take it that you didn't hear," Irvine said dryly, adjusting the lapels of his jacket and staring at himself hard in the mirror. He barely recognized the suave looking man in the reflection, with his hair combed to the side and his two smoky eyes taking everything in. He felt so…naked without his eye patch and headband. "Raven's attending tonight—a personal request from the Emperor."

"Impossible! Rudolph would never do such a thing!" Van fumed as he fixed his hair back into its normal ponytailed style, taking special care to calm the wild black spikes poking out about his face. "Raven practically destroyed half the planet, why would Rudolph want him in the Palace, let alone _personally_ invite him?"

The older man could only shrug. "Dunno. Just telling you what I heard kid."

"And just who told you all this anyhow?" Angrily, the pilot pulled on his dress jacket, a special-made attire specifically designed for the Guardian Force—a uniform unique in its equally Imperial and Republican influences.

"I told him."

The door closed with a soft metallic click and the two pilots turned to face the intruder, each stunned that they had let down their guard enough to not even hear the door open.

"You?" sputtered Van. "How would you know anything about this?"

"I know because Karl told me," Thomas replied coolly, more than a little miffed he hadn't even gotten a 'hello'. "He's actually escorting Raven _and_ Reese to the Palace as we speak—it was a direct order from His Majesty."

"See? I told you."

"That's _asinine_!" The young Flyheight was growing more and more irate with every passing moment, yanking on the laces of his boots harshly. "Ridiculous! Insane! Raven _and_ _Reese?_ Can this night get any better? What, are Specula and Shadow attending too?"

"Don't be stupid," Thomas adjusted a slightly skewed medal on his chest. "Organoids aren't allowed to attend. And besides," his hand dropped back down to his side. "You should be fine—you won't see them at all, I think. You'll be escorting Miss Fiona, just… avoid them."

Van didn't notice the underlying bitterness in the blonde's voice and shrugged. "Suppose you're right… Still, I think it's a bad idea… Oh well, guess we better get going, hey guys?"

"Yeah, still need to pick up the girls." Irvine flicked a stray hair out of his amethyst eyes. "Coming Shubaltz?"

"Nah," Thomas uncharacteristically shrugged. "I told Karl I'd meet him at the Palace. He seemed pretty upset about playing babysitter for Reese and Raven, so I told him I'd be there in case something went wrong. I'll meet up with you guys later."

It felt like he could jump straight out of his skin at the slightest noise—he kept his hands clenched into fists so they wouldn't shake so. He cursed himself at that moment, cursed himself for the fear he felt and for the overwhelming desire for revenge that was resting quite comfortably with his heart.

Karl Lichen Shubaltz was not a man who felt fear; he was not a man who hungered for revenge.

But in the case of Reese, the Blue Devil, he wanted revenge very, _very_ badly. Not only had she invaded his mind, rummaged through all his memories, and nearly made him kill his own brother—she had broken his pride.

The combination of fear and rage made him feel sick to his stomach and his porcelain face twinged slightly in discomfort.

Raven took this facial twinge to be one of disgust. "You really don't have to do this you know," he sniffed apathetically, his footsteps hollow on marble floors. "We _are _grown-ups."

"If I didn't _have _to do this, believe me, I wouldn't be here." He uncharacteristically snapped back, his nerves making his voice sound like sandpaper. "I am not here of my own free will."

"Mhmm." Reese pursed her lips quietly, resisting the urge to tumble around in the Colonel's mind again. Since the death of Prozen and Hiltz, she'd tried to be more...normal, and mind probing was quite definitely not normal so she refrained from it. "Leave him alone, Raven. He's ill." Former mind-reader or not, however, she knew when a man was nervous.

The blond shot her a distrustful green stare. Being in her presence was maddening--she had seen every memory, every sin. She knew everything about his life, first kiss, first word, first kill. She made him feel vulnerable--a feeling he hated.

He turned back to stare at the long, lavishly decorated hallway in front of him and prayed that the night would go by quickly.

**So there you have it folks, the first chapter. Hopefully, second chapter will be up shortly! **

**R&R, you know you want to!**


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